“Tell it to the Frogs” opens with Merle, still chained to the rooftop pipe, talking to himself. He’s reminiscing about a fight he’d been in and suddenly loses it. He begins struggling again to free himself when he hears banging at the door. Several walkers have reached the roof and are now trying to break through the door that T-Dog had chained shut.
The group from Atlanta, with Rick driving, are continuing their trek back to the mountain camp. Morales tells Rick about Merle’s brother, Daryl. He explains that Daryl won’t be very happy about what they’d done to his brother.
Back at the camp, Shane is still playing father figure to Carl. He invites Carl to come with him to the quarry and learn how to catch frogs. In the distance, the survivors hear the alarm from Glenn’s new ride. Glenn arrives with the alarm still blaring. The campers are happy to see him, but can definitely do without the alarm. Jim quickly silences the alarm.
Rick and company arrive minutes later. The Atlanta group exit the truck and Morales invites Rick to come meet everyone. Rick takes a moment as the group are reunited with their respective loved ones.
Lori and Carl had given up hope, once again, when Carl catches a glimpse of his father walking up the path. Rick, Lori and Carl share a tearful reunion (I’m not ashamed to admit that I was misty-eyed as well) as Shane looks on, doing his best to appear happy.
Later that evening, some survivors join Rick around a fire and listen to him describe his journey from the hospital and everything that brought him to where he is now.
As Shane expresses his relief that Rick is back, he eyes another camper, Ed, add another log to his fire. This goes against the camp rules. Fires are to be kept at embers to that walkers aren’t attracted by the light. The two share a tense moment as Ed’s family looks on. Shane removes the log and extinguishes it.
Once everyone is calm again, the survivors begin to discuss how to break the news to Daryl that his brother is still chained to that rooftop pipe. The all agree that Daryl will not react well.
Later, Rick and Lori spend their first night together in months. He explains to her how he knew her and Carl were alive, that their family photos were missing from their home. Lori apologizes to Rick for their pre-zombie apocalypse marital troubles and the two become intimate, with Carl sound asleep just a few feet away.
Rick wakes up the next morning, to see that his clothes are being washed. Primitive methods are no match for a good washing machine, but they do the trick. He finds Lori and tells her that he wants to go back to Atlanta for Merle, but only if he has her blessing.
Screams ring out just outside the camp. Rick, Shane, Jim and Dale rush to a clearing to find a walker feeding on a deer. The four beat it back to death, only to hear more rustling in the bushes a few yards away.
Daryl emerges from the woods, angry that the walker had contaminated the deer that he had tracked for miles and finally shot. The camp will have to live on squirrel meat for now, as Daryl had killed about a dozen.
Shane and Rick pull Daryl aside back at the camp and tell him where Merle is, and that he’s still alive. Daryl, as expected, reacts very poorly to the news and the two former deputies must pin him down until he’s calm. Rick informs him that he plans to not only go get Merle, but to grab his bag of guns he had left back in the city before he was rescued by Glenn.
Rick dons his sheriff’s uniform once more and assembles his crew: Daryl, Glenn and T-Dog. Most of the camp have their reservations. They don’t think that a bag of guns and a bigoted prick like Merle are worth risking their lives.
After Rick leaves, Carl comforts his mother.
“Thing of all that’s happened,” he says. “Nothing’s killed him yet.”
The rescue team park the truck and continue their mission on foot. Their only projectile weapons are Rick’s pistol with four rounds and Daryl’s crossbow.
Carl joins Shane in the quarry for some frog catching. Shane still seems intent on being Carl’s new father but Lori wants no part of that. She tells Shane to stay away from Carl. Her family is now off limits. She reminds Shane that he told her that Rick died. Shane’s long-term plan to swoop in on his best friend’s lady is slowly coming to light.
Meanwhile, Amy, Andrea, Jacqui and Carol, Ed’s wife, wash clothes in the quarry as Ed looks on, smoking a cigarette. The women all share what the miss most about the old world and have a few laughs, but Ed will have none of that. He slithers over to where the women are and asks what’s so funny. As they continue to wash clothes, he hovers over them like the women are slaves and he’s a field overseer.
Andrea confronts Ed and the two get into a heated argument. Carol tries to intervene, only to has Ed slap her across the face and a women-versus-Ed donnybrook ensues. Shane sees the commotion and proceeds to get Ed on the ground and beat the absolute piss out of him. The women think that Shane is just angry at Ed, but he also appears to be taking out his frustrations toward Lori out on Ed as well.
Back in the city, the rescue crew finally make their way into the building where the Atlanta group once claimed as their shelter. The reach the top of the stairs, cut the chain on the door and run out on to the roof. Merle is nowhere to be found.
Only Merle’s severed hand remains, next to a bloodied hacksaw and pair of handcuffs.
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